Monday, May 23, 2011

Based on the Value Add system, Jimmy Butler is the 18th best offensive college player eligible for the draft this year. Since high school players were ruled ineligible, the NBA has picked between 44 and 52 college players every draft, so hopefully there won't be too many international players this year and Jimmy's name is called.

I ran the best 2500 returning players based on the system in an earlier post, but there were almost 1000 players who did not return (seniors, transferred, declared for draft). Of these, only 17 were more valuable to their teams than Jimmy Butler was. Here is the list of the top 20 departing college players with where they rank among draft prospects according to Draft Express:

Fname

Lname

Team

College

Draft

Kemba

Walker

Connecticut

1

4

Jimmer

Fredette

Brigham Young

2

15

Charles

Jenkins

Hofstra

3

24

Noah

Dahlman

Wofford

4

ND

Reggie

Jackson

Boston College

5

16

Derrick

Williams

Arizona

6

2

Ben

Hansbrough

Notre Dame

7

36

Mickey

McConnell

St. Mary's

8

95

Jon

Leuer

Wisconsin

9

38

Talor

Battle

Penn St.

10

90

Jon

Diebler

Ohio St.

11

53

Marshon

Brooks

Providence

12

42

Nolan

Smith

Duke

13

23

Devon

Beitzel

N. Colorado

14

ND

Austin

Freeman

Georgetown

15

75

Chris

Warren

Mississippi

16

ND

Alec

Burks

Colorado

17

7

Jimmy

Butler

Marquette

18

31

JaJuan

Johnson

Purdue

19

28

Marcus

Morris

Kansas

20

5

NBA Potential vs. College Value AddNow obviously NBA scouts are focused on the potential to play in the NBA, which often but not always coincides with how much a player has helped his college team. For example, Purdue obviously had a lot of great college players in the 1990s when they were the 8th best team of the decade (Sagarin) but they only had one 1st round draft pick. Alabama had 7 first rounders play in the 1990s, but were only the 36th best team.

AP Writers said Jerel McNeal was one of the 10 best college players in America his senior year, but NBA scouts picked 44 college players ahead of him in the draft.

Still, in 17 of 20 cases the top college players are also among the 10% of departing D1 players with a shot at being picked, which is a pretty good correlation, and the three exceptions are pretty easy to explain as great college players who just don't have the size or speed to play in the NBA.

Chris Warren of Mississippi is measured in at less than 5-10, Devon Beitzel of N. Colorado is a slow 6-foot-1 despite being dubbed as “Little Jimmer” en route to Big Sky MVP titles, and Wofford’s Noah Dahlman would have to join Lazar Hayward as the only frontline player in the NBA under 6-foot-6.

On the flip side, when we look at the 31 players Draft Express has solidly in the draft who were NOT in the Top 20 on the Value Add system, they break into 3 categories:- 22 of these 31 were in the Top 100- 7 of the 9 that weren't were a combination of great defensive players and/or underclassmen who would be great college players if they played another year- only 2 of the 31 just seemed to be underperformers

Here is the list of the players who should go in the draft but were not one of the best 20 offensive college players last year:

Fname

Lname

Team

College

Draft

Notes

Kyrie

Irving

Du

190

1

Top 3 for the 10 games he played

Brandon

Knight

KY

61

3

Top 5% of defenders

Kawhi

Leonard

SDSt

67

6

#1 defender in country

Markieff

Morris

KS

62

8

Top 2% of defenders

Tobias

Harris

TN

86

9

Klay

Thompson

WASt

76

10

Top 10% of defenders

Tristan

Thompson

TX

136

11

Top 1% of defenders

Kenneth

Faried

MorSt

46

12

Top 10% of defenders

Jordan

Hamilton

TX

39

13

Top 1% of defenders

Chris

Singleton

FLSt

321

14

Top 1% of defenders

Kyle

Singler

Du

44

17

Top 2% of defenders

Travis

Leslie

GA

55

18

Tyler

Honeycutt

UCLA

446

19

Sophomore, Top 10% of defenders

Josh

Selby

KS

663

20

Freshman, Top 10% defenders

Justin

Harper

Rich

23

21

Darius

Morris

Mich

32

22

Top 10% of defenders

Iman

Shumpert

GATe

93

25

Top 5% of defenders

Jereme

Richmond

IL

359

26

Freshman, Top 10% defenders

Trey

Thompkins

GA

285

27

Athletic, Top 10% defenders

Nikola

Vucevic

USC

24

29

Top 3% of defenders

Keith

Benson

Oak

71

30

E'Twaun

Moore

Pur

31

32

Top 3% of defenders

Shelvin

Mack

But

97

33

Malcolm

Lee

UCLA

147

34

college underperformer?

Norris

Cole

ClSt

22

35

Jordan

Williams

MD

94

37

Top 3% of defenders

David

Lighty

OSU

50

39

Top 1% of defenders

Demetri

McCamey

IL

40

40

Top 10% of defenders

Isaiah

Thomas

WA

28

41

Andrew

Goudelock

CofC

27

43

Justin

Holiday

WA

107

44

college underperformer?

The easiest to explain is Kyrie Irving, who was in the top 3 in Value Add for the 10 games he played, but slips to 190th for all the games missed.

Note that 20 of 30 were among the Top 10% of all defenders in the Value Subtract defensive rating.

Hopefully Jimmy Butler’s standing as the 18th best college player in the draft and the 31st best college prospect according to Draft Express results in us being able to add him to this list next year: